Here is some regulatory capture we can all get behind

As long as nobody is talking about abolishing the Louisiana Economic Development Department Of Corporate Welfare Money Gifting (yet) we might as well keep the pressure on it to use its powers for good. 

Louisiana Economic Development is asking a judge for at least $16.8 million in payments from Bell Helicopter over two failed deals in Lafayette to create jobs at a state-financed helicopter assembly facility.

The state agency said the Fort Worth, Texas-based helicopter company acted in "bad faith" by trying to get the state to accept a revised deal earlier this year, while the firm secretly moved its operations to Texas.

According to LED, Bell was seeking tax breaks from Fort Worth's local government and outlining a new "factory of the future" in Texas this year that would bring 400 jobs, all while failing to meet its obligations in Louisiana.

Y'all, Bobby Jindal gave away a lot of giant novelty checks to some pretty shady grifters while he was Governor.  It might be worth our while to run around clawing back as much of that money as we can that hasn't made its way all the way to Tahiti just yet. 

Where did all the money go?

The State of Louisiana is now and will continue to be faced with serious budget problems for the foreseeable future.  Which is weird because we keep heating about how these are the boom times in our state. 

Last month the Wall Street Journal article enthused, "We are building a Qatar on the Bayou," in an article about the heavily taxpayer subsidized petrochemical bonanza in Louisiana. 

So get ready to read many more like this. 

A subsidiary of Chinese chemical manufacturer Shandong Yuhuang Chemical Co. will build a $1.85 billion methanol manufacturing complex on the Mississippi River in St. James Parish, the company said Thursday.

Gov. Bobby Jindal's office called it the first major foreign direct investment by a Chinese company in Louisiana.

Well.. it's also a major direct investment by Louisiana in the company.

Louisiana Economic Development started discussions with the company five months ago and offered incentives to lure the company to the state:

• a $9.5 million grant to be paid over five years starting in 2017 for infrastructure costs.
• a $1.75 million grant over 10 years to cover some of the costs of developing and creating access to the riverfront.

The company is also expected to pursue breaks through Louisiana's industrial tax exemption and the Quality Jobs program, which provides a 5-or-6-percent cash rebate of annual gross payroll for new direct jobs for up to 10 years.

In another 10 years or so, we'll start to theoretically recoup some of the money we're paying out now.  That is unless we're paying it out to whoever is next in line by then.